Kim Sterelny’s The Evolution of Agency and Other Essays is a collection of articles. There are six articles in the philosophy of biology, five in philosophy of mind, and one introductory piece about both. Nine of the articles have been previously published. The title essay, the introductory essay, and “Darwin’s Tangled Bank” are the new works. Given the focus of Metapsychology Online, I will emphasize the work in philosophy of mind. However, a passing word on the topics covered in the philosophy of biology papers is warranted. Among other things, Sterelny discusses the commitments of adaptationism, the viability of group selection hypotheses, and explanatory pluralism. Since contemporary philosophy of biology focuses on topics internal to biology (3), and since Sterelny’s papers exemplify this focus, these six articles are recommended for readers already interested in the philosophy of biology. They are not suited to introduce readers to this territory, nor are they particularly apt for showing the connections between philosophy of biology and other areas of thought.

Chapter Eight, “Where Does Thinking Come From? A Commentary on Peter Godfrey-Smith’s Complexity and the Function of Mind in Nature“, sets the tone for the papers in the philosophy of mind. These take a bottom-up approach to the mind, examining the evolution of cognitive capacities from simple stimulus detecting systems to more complex minds. These papers presuppose knowledge about philosophical issues in biologically informed study of mentality, so they are not suitable for introductory use. Chapter Eight is also a bridging essay, since Sterelny’s criticisms of Godfrey-Smith’s work have much to do with the nature of adaptationist explanation, one of the themes in the papers on philosophy of biology. Sterelny examines Godfrey-Smith’s work on the “environmental complexity hypothesis”, the idea that ” . . . cognitive capacity evolves as a selected response to detectable environmental complexity.” (182). This hypothesis reappears throughout the following papers. Godfrey-Smith construes this as an adaptationist and externalist explanation of cognition. Sterelny objects in a couple of ways: 1] Externalism is implausible. Either both internal and external factors are necessary for an evolved response to complexity, without either being sufficient (184), or there is no principled internal/external division (186-7). 2] The hypothesis is difficult to test. Godfrey-Smith is interested in the evolution of cognitive plasticity, but this is too roughly grained an idea to be a single trait fit for adaptationist explanation. Godfrey-Smith’s more specific interpretation does not suffice either (191-2).

Chapter Nine, “Basic Minds”, takes representation as necessary for mentality and examines the difference between minimal minds and merely reacting systems. Sterelny does this through examination of two views of representation. Some–Ruth Garrett Millikan and Jerry Fodor, for example–take representation as a matter of evolution and function. Hence attributing representations commits one to very little, if anything, about the proximal mechanisms of the behavior explained by such attribution. Others-Colin Allen and Marc Hauser, Fred Dretske-see representation as a matter of the proximate mechanism of behavior. Sterelny tries to take a middle route (a method often taken in these papers). He agrees with the second camp that the first camp tends to attribute representations too liberally (207). However, his account of the nature of representation leaves room for variation of mechanism (208). Sterelny here uses a distinction made by Philip Pettit and Frank Jackson. “Actual sequence” explanations proceed by describing the steps leading up to the explanandum in question. “Robust process” explanations explain something by specifying features responsible for the explanandum consistent with variation in the steps leading to it. Explaining a sports victory via a play-by-play description is an actual sequence explanation. Explaining the same victory in terms of the strengths and weaknesses of the teams is a robust process explanation (207-8). Sterelny thinks representations are causally relevant as part of robust process explanations (he thinks adaptationist explanations are also robust process explanations-see chapters two and six). Hence attribution of representations leaves room for a variety of mechanisms.

This is developed in Chapter Eleven, “Situated Agency and the Descent of Desire”, again committed to examining the transition from merely reactive detection to representation. Here the matter is examined through evaluation of the theory of situated agency, which explains intelligent action without positing internal representations of the agent’s world. Sterelny argues that such simple agency is no good in “informationally translucent” environments (245-6) nor in hostile ones (246-7). Here, simple, single cues are not reliable indicators of features that organisms need to track. Instead, organisms need to develop methods of tracking relevant environmental features via different channels. When this ability develops, Sterelny thinks we have representation, not just detection. The organism’s sensitivity to the feature is now robust, and hence not so easily tricked, not fragile.

A theme shared by Chapters Eleven and Twelve, “The Evolution of Agency”, is the evolution of desire. Sterelny argues that motivation structures evolve from simple, hard-wired systems to more flexible, preference driven ones as organisms face greater variety of responses to situations. Creatures with options, or with a variety of ways of reacting to a single stimulus, need ways of deciding how to act that creatures with fewer options do not require. Representations of one’s own needs and motivations-desires, preferences-are the purported result of such pressure.

Chapter Ten, “Intentional Agency and the Metarepresentational Hypothesis”, is a criticism of appeals to the ability to represent the mental states of oneself and others as an explanation of complex cognitive abilities, such as social intelligence. For pretend play-e.g., using a banana as a telephone-and learning by imitation, Sterelny prefers explanations that appeal to functional analysis (225-8, 234-5). These activities can be explained by showing that an organism grasps that something can be used in a certain way in a certain context. This requires no appeal to metarepresentational abilities. As for predicting the behavior of others, Sterelny prefers simulationist explanations (231). This requires only some way of taking one’s own decision-making capacities “off-line”, a purportedly simpler matter than the representation of others’ mental states.

High points include a] the attention paid to motivation and behavioral plasticity, b] the discussions of the difference between stimulus bound (fragile) and multi-tracking (robust) behavior, c] the use of the distinction between actual sequence and robust process explanations, and d] the criticisms of the metarepresentational hypothesis. A weak point is Sterelny’s account of the mark of representation, as opposed to mere reactive detection. Sterelny now recognizes some arbitrariness to his use of multi-tracking abilities to differentiate these two abilities (23); I agree. However, I also agree that the difference between such fragile and robust abilities is independently important. Readers are hence recommended to detach this topic from Sterelny’s discussions of the mark of representation.

© Andrew Sneddon, 2001

Andrew Sneddon is currently visiting assistant professor in philosophy at McGill University. As of Sept. 1, 2001, he will be Killam postdoctoral fellow in philosophy at the University of Calgary, where he will be working on a book in philosophy of action. His other interests include philosophy of mind and moral philosophy, especially moral psychology.

Categories: Philosophical